Apple's new big cat is here, and it's going to change a hell of a lot about the way you use your Mac. It packs the best of the iPad, costs $30, and is only available in the App Store.

Full Screen Mode

Fullscreen mode is one of the most dramatic aspects of the new operating system—all apps will have full screen powers. Applications will have a dedicated full screen button, blowing it up and knocking away the menu bar (unless you mouse over). You'll be be able to keep multiple apps open in full screen mode, and can swipe gracefully between them. It looks gorgeous in motion.

Say goodbye to the clutter of multiple windows. This is UI minimalism.

Mission Control

Mission Control is Exposé on steroids. Serious steroids. Like Barry Bonds steroids. Activate it, and you'll see everything bit of activity at once: your Dashboard, desktop spaces, and full-screened apps up top, with a traditional Exposé assortment of open windows beneath. All accessible at a glance and a click.

Flinging windows to different spaces is also much easier, as Lion will let you drag whatever you're working with into sortable stacks in the top-right corner while you're in the Mission Control seat. When you're done with them, just drag them apart. Again, looks super simple.

Launchpad

Launchpad is more or less lifted straight off the iPad. Instead of having to click through to your applications folder or a select bunch on the dock, every program you have installed can be brought up and launched in iOS-style pages. Easily scannable, super simplified.

This is what your apps look like:

And this is what folders look like:

Resume

Now this is seriously neat. Lion will remember everything about an application the moment you quit it—and bring it back to life when it's restarted. Window position, settings, all the minutia. Using Pages with certain text highlighted? Quit it and open it again—it'll be lit up just like it was before. The feature extends to a full system reboot as well, so you can pick back up where you left off after, say, a software update. Or, elect for a clean beginning.

Auto Save

Just what it sounds like! It'll save your work as you go. You can revert if you'd like, without the need for redundant copies. But how will you access this multitude of versions? With...

Versions

Similar to Resume, Versions will give you some time-warping powers over your Mac. You'll be able to save a snapshot of your work at any given point in time, and then swap between them, a la Time Machine. It's basically just a jazzed up way to save, but being able to edit across versions without seams looks really neat (and useful!).

Mac App Store

The store itself is nothing new, but whoo boy, they are pushing this thing hard. The store will be beefed up when Lion hits, with in-app purchases and push notifications regarding your downloads. Moreover, it's embedded deep into the OS this time, and if you want to take fullest advantage of Launchpad, Apple's pushing you to use their own shop—purchased apps are whisked directly to the 'Pad. And let's not forget that this OS is only going to be available on the Mac App Store. Pour one out for the optical drive.

Airdrop

Want to send a file to a buddy? Of course! We all do. And now that's built right into the OS. Airdrop is a direct, P2P WiFi sharing system, allowing you to beam your stuff to anyone around you. Your swappin' partners have to be on the same wireless network as you, but Airdrop will discover them automatically, and allow for drag-and-drop sharing over an encrypted connection. No setup needed.

Mail

Our little Mail app is getting a boost too. Fullscreen layout, triple-column interface, and super-smart searching, conducive to a "conversation" view of your messages, tracking correspondance across subject lines. Find exactly who you want to look up, pinpoint a date range (searching for "March" auto-pulls messages from... March, and, well, does a lot of what other clients have been up to. But for dedicated Mail users, this is great news.

See It in Motion

Launchpad! Mission Control! Airdrop! Lion's packing so many bold new features that the keynote sounded like chatter from a missile silo. Apple highlighted the ten big ones, but what about the other 240? There are some hidden gems. Let's look! More »